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  1. billd91

    D&D General Is Grappler feat mandatory/broken for monks?

    I wouldn't consider play over 10th level particularly niche. His save DC didn't crest 20 for a while, but even before that, he was a menace running around the battlefield stunning things right and left with a DC of 15 or 16. The fact was, before the nerf, he got so many tries at it that lots of...
  2. billd91

    Olympics 2026 Thread

    CTE turning up in high schoolers is also why I stopped watching football at all levels.
  3. billd91

    Olympics 2026 Thread

    No, we shouldn't, but that kind of question comes with all sorts of caveats. Any decision of this sort, including Vonn's, should come in consultation with appropriate medical experts as well as respect for someone making personal, if potentially short-sighted with respect to bodily damage...
  4. billd91

    D&D General Is Grappler feat mandatory/broken for monks?

    It did get hit with the nerf bat AND THIS IS A GOOD THING. I tell you, a high Con isn’t that much of a defense when the save DC is 20-ish and the monk is flurrying multiple shots a round. It rapidly peeled away legendary resistance as well.
  5. billd91

    Difficulty Numbers: Scaling, or Static?

    Even with climbing or skiing, there may be some variation - for example, someone with an alpine adventuring background vs a bookworm from the city library. The alpine adventurer should be able to do things the bookworm can't and situations difficult for the bookworm would be routine for the...
  6. billd91

    Difficulty Numbers: Scaling, or Static?

    I'm not really sure what you mean with "the numbers only go up". An RPG could model Vonn's injured ACL as a flat penalty on the die or some equivalent of disadvantage on the check. Various RPGs take things like injuries and deviations from fitness into account, but most don't because most don't...
  7. billd91

    Difficulty Numbers: Scaling, or Static?

    Ultimately, this is 5e in a nutshell. This edition encourages the DM to make a determination of Yes/No based on what the PC brings to the table and the nature of the task, and then suggests rolling only when Yes/No is unknown/unclear. So yeah, don't make the priest of Osiris make a roll about...
  8. billd91

    Difficulty Numbers: Scaling, or Static?

    Honestly, that's real life where events will follow as complex a set of factors as they must in order to resolve a question such as "who will win this skiing event". But for a game, we don't know all or even most of the factors so we replace it with a stochastic factor to account for all of...
  9. billd91

    Difficulty Numbers: Scaling, or Static?

    Static. 3e is the best edition for laying out what a difficulty class was and why for specific tasks (which stands to reason since players having well-informed options was that edition's mantra). It was just a bit cumbersome to use efficiently. That's why I'm OK with the loosey-goosey difficulty...
  10. billd91

    EN World What you thought a thread title said.

    Carolina Carnage butthurt live stream
  11. billd91

    D&D General Is Grappler feat mandatory/broken for monks?

    You could look at it as enabling a free grappling check... or as enabling a grappling attack to not have to forego the possibility of doing damage. From that perspective, I think it's a nice feat that will encourage players to grapple a lot more. So I definitely wouldn't touch that provision...
  12. billd91

    Olympics 2026 Thread

    Yeah, broken leg.
  13. billd91

    Pineapple Express: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet?

    Who ordered the heaping helping of Dunning-Kruger?
  14. billd91

    D&D General When Was it Decided Fighters Should Suck at Everything but Combat?

    I think the fairly obvious is that nobody decided this explicitly. Rather, it was the byproduct of other decision that had unintended side effects. This is the big, granddaddy reason. Once you started working with skills, largely starting with adding the thief, someone was gonna be the skill...
  15. billd91

    What is "railroading" to you (as a player)?

    It may be one of those player kneejerk reactions that are kind of inexplicable. You can beat their PCs up, even kill them, and some players will shrug it off. But, oh man, imprison them or <shudder> destroy their stuff and they'll go ballistic.
  16. billd91

    What is "railroading" to you (as a player)?

    This is one of those tricks of how normal procedures are practiced, I suppose. If the players don't have any significant input on the framing of the situation (whether a scene/situation or start of an adventure or even being together in a tavern and being approached by an adventure hook...
  17. billd91

    What are you watching in (late 2025 and) 2026?

    It's absolutely worth checking out. It's quite a performance.
  18. billd91

    D&D General D&D Archetypes that spread out to other settings and media

    Uh, I think some of that's Tolkien prior to D&D: Burgler Baggins. Dwarves like Thorin affected by dragon sickness. Bow-using elves come from Legolas. Orcs are just plain evil. And the wizards are old with long beards.
  19. billd91

    The Muppet Show

    I thought the Muppets was actually quite good. They were definitely in the humor vein of 30 Rock and The Office more than the original Muppet Show. But I thought it worked pretty well and expanded on some of the characters without contradicting what they stood for. People forget that one of Jim...
  20. billd91

    Let's talk about "plot", "story", and "play to find out."

    There's going to be overlap just as there was in Rashomon. But everyone at the table has a different perspective on the game, how the campaign's events are unfolding, what importance and prominence they will assign to those events, and how they'll remember and think about them. Each player comes...
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